I'm managing director of Strategic Communications for FTI Consulting, based in Houston. Prior to joining FTI in 2012, I had a 33 year career in the oil and gas industry, working public policy issues for a number of companies including Shell, Burlington Resources, El Paso Corp., and Coastal States. I've also led numerous industry-wide efforts to address regulatory and legislative issues at the local, state and federal level. From April 2010 through June 2012, David served as the Texas State Lead for America’s Natural Gas Alliance. I attended Texas A&I University and The University of Texas, earning B.A. in accounting.

The Weekly Oil And Gas Follies

In which we drill down into the @GDBlackmon TwitterTwitter feed to briefly chronicle the week’s silliness, shenanigans, fake news and real news related to the oil and natural gas industry.

Goodness, where to begin? The biggest news this week came from the college town of Denton, Texas, where the city council made the sensible decision not to enact a ban on hydraulic fracturing that had been brought to the council through a petition drive. Ostensibly, this drive was conducted by “local activists”, but in reality it was funded by the same usual suspects who funded and organized the Occupy Wall Street Movement. If dishonesty were currency, the anti-fracking ‘movement’ would be fabulously wealthy. It was the week that our reliable friends at Grist published yet another false screed about oil and gas “subsidies” that are as mythical as the Hydra (although it is fair to note that the folks at the History Channel’s “Ancient Aliens” believe the Hydra actually existed, so the writers and editors at Grist have that going for them). It was the week that the media predictably overreacted to an announcement by the Department of the Interior that it was planning to allow very limited and restricted seismic surveys off the Atlantic Coast. On the good side, it was the week that the Aussies repealed their misguided carbon tax. All in all, a target rich environment for oil and gas folly hunters.

We like to point out here that natural gas is the feedstock for all manner of other industries, notably among them the fertilizer industry. Given that, it is apparent the authors of this piece were inhaling copious amounts of natural gas for weeks prior to issuing this, our Big, Smelly Dose of Fertilizer Piece of the Week!:Big Oil Robs Consumers of Choice – Biofuels also are facing stiff resistance from Big Oil. This time, it’s not OPEC putting a stranglehold on the marketplace. It is instead the powerful oil industry that, reports show, is blocking the pipeline for biofuels to get to market. Last fall, we asked the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate possible anticompetitive practices by the oil industry. We shared concerns we heard that oil companies allegedly are mandating retailers carry and sell premium gasoline, which prevents the retailer from selling renewable fuels without installing expensive infrastructure upgrades.

Mindnumbingly false “FossilFossil Fuel Subsidy” Piece of the Week. Hint: There is no such thing as a federal “subsidy” for the oil and natural gas industry. As we pointed out in this piece more than a year and a half ago, the tax programs specific to oil and gas in the federal tax code are the same kinds of standard tax treatments received by every industry in America. Referring to common tax treatments, some of which have been on the books for more than a century, as “subsidies”, is dishonest and frankly idiotic, and just serves to demonstrate a vacuum of validity that exists in the author’s arguments.: Thanks to the fracking boom, we’re wasting more money than ever on fossil fuel subsidies – According to a report released last week by Oil Change International, “Federal fossil fuel production and exploration subsidies in the United States have risen by 45 percent since President Obama took office in 2009, from $12.7 billion to a current total of $18.5 billion.” We are, as the report observes, “essentially rewarding companies for accelerating climate change.”

I’ll take Ummmm, No, Not Really for $300, Alex:Did Obama Just Signal He’ll Open the Atlantic Coast to Drilling? – The department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management finalized a plan that lays out a series of environmental restrictions—aimed at protecting marine life, such as whales, dolphins, and sea turtles—for companies seeking to look for oil in mid- and South Atlantic waters. A number of companies have applied for permits for testing that would update old estimates of oil and gas underlying the waters that have long been off-limits to drilling.

The Oil Patch Photo of the Week, Courtesy of @DWBerkley:

Drilling and agriculture, side by side in the Marcellus Shale Region

And now for our Totally, Completely, 100% Shamelessly Self-Serving Link of the Week!: The Rise of Saudi TexKota – Indeed, if you look at Item #2 in Dr. Perry’s piece, you find that as recently as the beginning of 2011, these three fields combined were producing just about 1.5 million barrels per day. At that time, those fields produced less than 25% of overall U.S. oil production; today, they produce almost 46% of the nation’s daily oil output. And if one adds in the remainder of Texas’s oil production to this total, you find that these two states combined produce about half of all the oil produced in the U.S. today.

Why yes, yes we would. Great stuff from Daniel Yergin:Expert: Without Fracking Boom, U.S. Would Face an Oil Crisis – We still call them unconventional, but they’re becoming pretty conventional,” Yergin said of recent increases in domestic oil and gas production. “U.S. natural gas production’s up 34 percent since 2005. Recoverable reserves have doubled. Crude oil production is up 66 percent since 2008. We’re seeing a re-balancing of world oil.” Given this changing energy landscape, Yergin says the United States should lift its ban on crude oil exports– rules imposed after the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s.

Awesome news that the Sierra Club and Peak Oil Cult hate.: Southern Ute Indian Tribe Christens Offshore Oil Platform – ribal Council members of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe and members of the Growth Fund’s Red Willow Production Co. attended the christening of Delta House, a 296-foot-tall semi-submersable floating oil and natural-gas production system, last week in Ingleside, Texas. The floating production system will be placed in the Mississippi Canyon about 53 miles offshore southeast of Venice, Louisiana, as early as the end of July, said Bob Zahradnik, operating director of Southern Ute Growth Fund.

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